Nokia today published its annual sustainability report, covering the company's sustainability performance in 2017 and focusing on four priority areas: improving people's lives with technology, protecting the environment, conducting our business with integrity, and respecting our people.
In our reporting, we are committed to expanding our transparency and our coverage. The People & Planet report is prepared in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative GRI Standards, and it is also compliant with the advanced level of the UN Global Compact. Furthermore, selected key sustainability indicators have been assured by an independent auditor. The full Nokia People & Planet Report 2017 is now available at www.nokia.com/people&planet.
"We are optimistic about the future and the potential of digital technologies to ignite a new era that will not only bring greater business opportunities for our company and others in our industry, but also personal, social and economic benefits for people everywhere," Nokia's President and CEO Rajeev Suri stated in the report.
Nokia's key sustainability achievements for 2017 included:
We continued to help our customers reduce their energy use and emissions, with modernized customer base station sites using, on average, 44% less energy.
We reduced our total energy consumption by 3% and water consumption by more than 14%. We also recycled 80% of waste from our buildings.
Nokia's corporate community investment programs such as new UNICEF programs on digital learning in Kenya and mHealth in Indonesia, and a continuation of the Myanmar early education program with Save the Children, reached approximately 254 100 people during the year, improving lives across the globe.
We were honored by the Ethisphere Institute as one of World's Most Ethical Companies, and we were again included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (World and Europe) as a sector leader in the CMT Communications Equipment sector.
As part of our engagement on human rights, we joined the board of the Global Network Initiative (GNI) as a full member and as the first and only telecommunications equipment provider.
As always, we strive to do even better. We have set ambitious targets, and there is still work ahead of us. In 2017, Nokia became the first telecoms vendor to set and have accepted its science-based targets with the Science Based Targets Initiative. Consequently, we now target to reduce emissions from our operations by 41% by 2030, and to reduce scope-3 emissions - emissions from customer use of our products - by 75% by 2030, with both targets measured against the 2014 baseline year.
"We recognize that we have the opportunity as well as responsibility to apply technology in ways that enhance people's lives and, more broadly, advance humanity," Suri said.